This just in from Tom Sawyer, the Governor’s Public Safety Liaison:

As the Governor’s Public Safety Liaison, I have the privilege of working with our local, state and federal law enforcement community to ensure that public safety remains our government’s top priority. With 36 years of experience in law enforcement, as a sheriff, California Highway Patrol officer and on the Board of Parole Hearings, I have devoted my career to ensuring that Californian’s are kept safe.  Today, I was proud to see the Governor take a bold step in protecting California’s children from the dangers of internet child pornography.

Today, Governor Schwarzenegger joined with the Attorney General and urged California’s over 100 internet providers to follow the lead of Verizon, Time Warner Cable, Sprint and the state of New York to block access to child pornography by ridding their servers of existing material and eliminating access to child pornography newsgroups, they are providing a potentially great public service to our state that will protect children from the dangers of internet child pornography.

California is home to the largest association of Internet providers in the country, the California Internet Service Providers Association, and every provider, regardless of size, can play an equally important role in protecting California’s children. Throughout my law enforcement career, I have witnessed incredible public safety achievements stemming from cooperation between private businesses and public officials. Having experienced the positive results of public-private partnerships, I urge California’s internet providers to work with local, state and federal law enforcement officials to ensure that access to illegal child pornography will be inaccessible on California’s internet.

California, a recognized leader on a number issues has the ability to prod the rest of America’s states and their internet providers to work together to end internet child pornography too.  We must remember that child pornography is not protected by the constitution, it is illegal, and it is illegal for a reason. Child pornography is harmful to children everywhere, and is a direct threat to the public well being. Any action to curb access to this harmful material must be taken.

California Internet Service Providers Association should rise to meet the challenge placed before them by the Governor and Attorney General. They should actively work with public officials to purge their servers of child porn and block access to groups that distribute it. This can be yet another successful public-private partnership that will provide a huge public service to the state, and allow parents across California’s to breathe easier knowing that their children are safer.

[Pub Note: Click through on Tom Sawyer’s name above to see what immediately came to mind when I heard from him…  LOL – Flash]

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.